The Past, Present and Future of Gay Marriage Legislation

In the news lately, you may have heard about the legislation being introduced in Tasmania to legalise same sex marriage. It’s causing quite a stir actually! There are many advocates in the community that are either for or against same sex marriage, and although reading their arguments is interesting enough, what I find really fascinating is Tasmania’s history with same sex rights, and the laws that might just make legalisation possible in this little island state.

The history of same sex equality in Tasmania has a quite dark and embarrassing past. You see, up until 1997, being in a male-male or female-female relationship was criminalized, with 20 years imprisonment being handed down to ‘offenders’. I was 3 years old when this law was still in place. It shocks me, that at same stage in my life (although I did not understand the laws at all at the age of 3), being in a same sex relationship incurred a punishment… a punishment that was more severe than what someone charged with rape or robbery would get.  Tasmania was well behind the rest of Australia. It can be even traced back to old records of a Tasmanian politician stating that homosexual people were criminals and should be “tracked down and wiped out, like murderers...” Was this guy serious!?

It was in 1988 that one of the first attempts was made to raise awareness of the harsh laws in place, but this attempt was quickly shut down. A stall was established in Salamanca Markets, with a petition in favour of gay law reform. However, it did not take long for the Hobart City Council to shut the stall down. When volunteers resisted the Council’s decisions, the police were brought in and over the next 2 months, a whopping 130 people were arrested. What’s particularly amazing about this defiance to authority in our tiny home state is that it remains to be Australia’s biggest gay rights civil disobedience!

It was through conversations with the public, awareness events and even law suits at national and international levels that eventually turned the tables on the discriminatory laws in ‘97. What I find amazing is that Tasmania went from having the worst laws pre-‘97, to now being the first state that may legalise same sex marriage.

And now onto the boring bits – how legalising same sex marriage is possible. To understand how the Tasmanian Government  can defy what the Australian Government has already made a law upon, we have to talk about law making processes (I’m sorry! Just bear with me)

So basically in Australia, we have 3 levels of government; local, state and national. All these 3 levels of government can make laws, but then what would happen if just say, the state makes a law like: ‘All Victorians will receive free cake at the expense of the state at the completion of high school’, but the national government has a law that says ‘NO individual will receive free cake at the expense of the government at the completion of high school’. Now these are pretty silly, made up laws, but it’s important to have a plan if one law contradicts another. To combat this problem, there is a law in place that explains that in the case of this contradiction, the national government law stays in place, and the state law becomes invalid. At this stage, I want to again apologize for the boring law stuff, but it will help in the next paragraph!

So as we know it, the national government law states that marriage is ‘the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life’. Now keep in mind that two laws cannot be inconsistent. With the national government stating ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ this means that they can only legislate upon heterosexual marriages. A state government can legislate upon homosexual marriages, as it is not mentioned in the national law! To relate it back to our cake laws, it’s like a state government saying ‘Okay, we can’t have free cake at the end of high school – but we can have free pie because the national government only mentioned cake’.

That is basically how it is even possible for the Tasmanian Government to legislate upon same sex marriage. Although, whether the legislation passes, is another question. It is now up to Tasmanian politicians to vote either in favour, or against, same sex marriage. Read more by Tegan.

Don't Baby Me

I remember clearly being in a store in New Zealand titled ‘The Warehouse’ - think of it as their answer to K-Mart, when I came across a superman costume. The fine print on the cape read “Warning, cape does not enable flight”. Good thing they warned me!

Cynicism aside it seems to my eyes that we are babying kids and youth at a whole new level. Don’t get me wrong, warnings are important. Anything that has a likelihood of leading to serious danger should be warned against. We need to protect our children, but I’m not talking about the serious stuff like forks in power sockets or hair dryers in bath tubs. I’m talking about the little things, the things that older generations did as a kid, I’m talking about eating dirt.

A study this year by a team at Harvard found that allowing kids to have access to minor micro bacteria can actually prevent a lot of other illnesses or conditions in a child's early life. They found that lifestyles free of all micro bacteria could lead to Asthma and other conditions. It’s not life changing evidence and it was tested on mice, sorry animal lovers! But still, is there something we can learn from it?

I believe that there is a certain line that needs to be drawn and unfortunately many parents draw it too close. Children need to be protected, definitely, but they also need to learn lessons. I know for a fact the biggest lessons I have learnt were at the result of my own mistakes. More than that, children need to live life courageously and in a care free way, otherwise, it’s like we’re trying to make them grow up quickly.

Take trampolines for example! Since when did they have nets? The way I see it, nothing wakes you up or teaches you resilience like your feet stuck in the springs. And yes, I’m being silly, but I think we need to allow kids to be kids.

Kids will get dirty, kids will get sick, kids will fight and kids will cry and don’t we all do the same? I work with children all the time and my number one priority before fun is safety, but I can tell you that I have worked with kids that are nothing more than big softies!

If our kids don’t have a taste for the real life, if they don’t know what resilience means, how will they cope at school or college, in exams or in the workplace? Let’s get kids back into eating dirt, jumping off things and skinning their knees. After all they're kids.

What do you think? Do we go over the top with safety procedures for kids or are they warranted? Comment below and tell me how it is.

Read More by Dylan.
Follow Dylan on Twitter @hespii

The Shiny Ball

Have you noticed how issues sometimes come out of nowhere and take over the political agenda?

Last week, every single person in Tasmania was talking about same sex marriage. People in churches, parliament, street corners, over coffee, in office - everywhere! It's an important topic that we should discuss… 

But have you noticed how consuming the discussion and debate is?

We're not talking about anything else at the moment. We're all eager to see how the politicians will vote - we being people on both sides of the debate - and we'll all be sitting on our seats when the announcement is made.

The thing is - we are not talking about the issues that are crippling the state.

Who actually saw that the forestry peace deal talks fell over?

Who read about the massive tin discovery in the Tarkine?

What about the fact that Tasmanian's will be paying for the carbon tax on our clean and green power?

None of these are new issues mind you, but they are all ones that we could be talking about. Focus on the could - because we're not talking about them. We're taken up with the discussion about same sex marriage.

How clever is that?

The government of Tasmania has stated publicly that they'll reintroduce a same sex marriage bill to parliament - at a time when every single other issue seems to be slipping away from the state government.

When was the last time you talked about our hospital system? 

The government has managed to transform the entire political discussion and essentially put everything that is negative behind a smoke screen. They've chosen something so big and something that is still controversial to some people, that they've captured and activated the hearts and minds of so many people.

It's like they got a big shiny ball and threw it past us. We may have been chasing a stick before, but now we want that shiny ball.

So when these things do come up and consume the conversation, make sure we don't forget what is behind the smoke screen - 

because rising power prices which benefits a government business,

a health system doing everything it can to survive itself, and

one of the largest minerals deposits being located in the largest tract of temperate rainforest in the Southern Hemisphere

- they're all issues we still need to talk about.

Don't get too distracted by the shiny ball!

Read more by Adam.

Follow Adam on Twitter @adammostogl

Meet Adam: Unspinning the political spin.

There's a worrying trend in Australian politics. We are becoming so comfortable with hearing politicians spin lies and hold press conferences presenting one side of the argument that we just have started switching off.

My name is Adam Mostogl, and I'm joining the Hello Noise team to help unspin political speak. See, I am one of those strange people who enjoy political discussions. I follow the #auspol (Australian politics) and #politas (Tasmanian politics) twitter feeds, watch and read about press conferences, and research the issues. I am, in a strange way, a fan of politics.

So as often as the Hello Noise team allow me, I'll be talking about what's going on in the political world. I'll be looking at what the parties stand for, what they're really saying, and how that affect us as young people in Australia.

Politics isn't an easy subject, so sometimes I'll using some bigger words. I'll do all I can to explain them, but sometimes I may not. Just leave a comment, and I'll help you out. So if it's just words, or a political question, don't hesitate to get in touch with me. I'm an active user of Twitter, so feel free to tweet me at @adammostogl and ask me your questions.

Because really, there is more to politics than Tony & Julia. There's theories, ideologies, and political spectrum's. There's electorates, polls, and pressers. And they're all things that voters should know about - because we're the ones who decide the future of this great nation!

Read more by Adam.